What it's about: journalist Emily Guendelsberger's experiences working in the service industry after losing her job at a Philadelphia newspaper.

What she did: Guendelsberger held jobs asa"picker" at an Amazon fulfillment center in Louisville, an AT&T call center representative in North Carolina, and a cashier at a San Francisco McDonald's.

Why you might like it: Reminiscent of Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, this eye-opening account offers ample context for the grueling (and often inhumane) working conditions of today's low-wage jobs.

What it is: a witty deep dive into the evolution of the book that explores how technological advancements, entrepreneurial trial and error, and shifting artistic and cultural conventions resulted in the bound tomes today's readers know and love.

What's inside: chapters surveyingthe history of elements that make up a book, including paper, ink, type, illustration, and binding.

Chapters include: "Etching a Sketch: Copperplate Printing and the Renaissance;" "Size Matters: The Invention of the Modern Book."

What it is: a compelling history of public libraries that centers on the experiences of patrons rather than staff.

What sets it apart: Though this is a mostly celebratory account, author Wayne A. Wiegand also notes the ways that libraries have denied access to their patrons, whether by censoring materials or prohibiting members of marginalized communities from obtaining library cards.

What it's about: how Colón endeavored to build a library collecting every book in the world, which he meticulously cataloged in a system of his own making that is now considered the first "search engine."

Try this next: for another engaging account of Renaissance-era bibliophilia, check out Stephen Greenblatt's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Swerve, about Poggio Bracciolini's 1417 discovery of a lost Roman text.